BOUNTY AND THE BEAST: £50,000 reward for evidence of real-life monsters

To mark the launch of its latest game Monster Hunter™: World, Capcom, a leading worldwide developer and publisher of videogames, is offering real-life monster hunters a huge £50,000 reward to find comprehensive evidence for the existence of ten famous global beasts, including the Loch Ness Monster and Big Foot.

Many of the monsters, some of which have not had evidence discovered for over 50 years, will come back on the radar, as budding hunters have until 30th June 2018 to claim their prize.

The recently launched Monster Hunter: World sees players gear up to venture on quests and battle against fearsome creatures, progressively improving their hunting abilities as they play. To bring the game to life and replicate how players are rewarded with loot from fallen foes, Capcom has enlisted real-life monster hunter and Cryptozoologist, Jon Downes to help select the top 10 monsters and analyse the evidence as it comes in.

Jon Downes, Monster hunter and Cryptozoologist, leads a search for the fabled ‘big cats’ (Beast of Bodmin moor ) that are thought to roam the local area. Bideford, North Devon. 12 January 2017

Jon Downes is Director of The Centre for Fortean Zoology – the world’s largest cryptozoological research organisation. Jon founded the centre in 1992, to examine mystery creatures, bizarre and aberrant animal behaviour and zoo form paranormal entities. Capcom has recruited Jon, given his extensive knowledge on the subject, to help select the monsters that still exist across the globe and assist with the skilful examination of evidence, once submissions have closed.

Jon Downes said: “There are stories of monsters from around the world, and while some may be flights of fancy, not every one of these monsters can be made up. It is one of life’s great mysteries and similar to Monster Hunter: World, I’ve spent the majority of my life travelling across the globe to hunt for evidence of these creatures. Although I have had some successes, I have yet to find that elusive proof and it is time for me to offer my help as I throw down the gauntlet to the next generation.”

A variety of ferocious creatures inhabit the New World in Monster Hunter: World, including all-time fan favourite, Rathalos, also known as the “King of the Skies” and the all new gigantic and terrifying Anjanath that will attack anything in its path with fiery blasts, without hesitation. Using inspiration from creatures in the game and a life-long career hunting around the world for mythical beasts, Jon has compiled a list of ten monsters in various shapes and sizes that will bag you the reward.

Laura Skelly, Senior PR Manager for Capcom added: “When planning the upcoming launch of Monster Hunter: World we couldn’t help but keep coming back to the real-life monsters we’ve all heard stories about since we were kids. Speaking to the world’s leading real-life monster hunter, Jon Downes, we were inspired to re-open investigations into a select list of top 10 beasts, setting a huge bounty to really encourage people to get back out hunting for evidence. Much like in the new Monster Hunter: World game, we through it was only right that the scale of the reward fit the task at hand”.

Those that submit clear new evidence of any monsters that have been verified by Jon and his team from the list below, will win the full bounty and prove that they are the world’s best, real-life Monster Hunter!

Bigfoot

Bigfoot (also known as Sasquatch) is a monster from American folklore; supposedly an ape-like animal, usually walking on its hind legs that inhabits forests, especially those of the Pacific Northwest. There have been a number of films taken which are alleged to be of these creatures, but opinions on their veracity are massively divided.

Scottish lake monster (Loch Ness Monster)

Everyone has heard of the Loch Ness Monster; a dinosaur-like creature with a long neck and barrel-shaped body reputed to haunt Britain’s largest lake. But not only are all the eye-witness accounts of something else entirely, but similar creatures have been reported from other lakes in Scotland and Ireland, and even in Northern Europe, Siberia and North America.

Mongolian Death Worm

These creatures of the Gobi Desert are purportedly between two and five feet long (60 cm to 1.5 meters) and are thick-bodied. Mongolian Prime Minister Damdinbazar in 1922 described the worm: “It is shaped like a sausage about two feet long, has no head nor leg and it is so poisonous that merely to touch it means instant death. It lives in the most desolate parts of the Gobi Desert.”

Mermaid

Grotesque humanoid creatures with the torso of a human being and the nether regions of a fish have been described by mariners for many hundreds of years before Disney made them so popular. But real mermaids are far scarier than their cartoon counterparts. One Cornish church has a carving to commemorate an incident when a mermaid abducted one of the parishioners a few hundred years back. And – believe it or not – people sill report seeing such things to this day.

Earth Hound

A 19th century clergyman described “…a mysterious dreaded sort of animal, …believed to live in graveyards, burrowing among the dead bodies and devouring them.” Believe it or not, this terrier sized animal has been reported in remote Scottish graveyards until the present day.

Yeti/Almasty

Two superficially very similar, but very different monsters. Also known as the Abominable Snowman (a misnomer because it is not abominable, nor is it a man, and very rarely strays beyond the snowline) the yeti is a collective term for one of two or three different animals reported in the foothills of the Himalayas and surrounding areas. Described as a huge ape-like creature with dark fur (white yetis are only seen in cartoons) it is probably the best known real monster in the world. The almasty, however, appears to be far more human than any of the other creatures described herein. Almasti/Almas/Almasty have been reported across a huge swathe of central Asia, from the Caucasus mountains in the west to China in the east. Researchers believe that they may be a very primitive species of human.

Chupacabras

In 1995 there was a spate of mysterious animal killings on the outskirts of Canovenas in Puertio Rico. The perpetrator was supposed to be a peculiar, semi-bipedal beast with spines down its back. A local civil defence official, Ismael Aguyo dubbed it the Chupacabras (chupa: suck cabras: goats) to commemorate the grotesque creature’s first publically accepted meal. The sightings continue.

The flying snake of Namibia

There are five well known species of “flying” snake in southern Asia. They don’t actually “fly” but launch themselves into the air, gliding from tree to tree. But the largest is only four feet long. In the southwestern African country of Namibia, however, there are stories of a much larger creature, that is supposed to reach a length of 25ft, and has a shining scale in the middle of what would be its forehead if snakes had foreheads. The story is so credible, however, that even the legendary Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer, discoverer of the coelacanth, was interested in it.

Yowie

This is the only monster (as far as we know) to have been immortalised by confectioners as a chocolate sweet. It is also the name of a baffling ape-like creature from Australia. Baffling? Yes, because as far as we know there have never been any primates in Australia apart from man. So, if it is not a primate, what on earth is it?

Cornish Owlman

Ever since 1976 children – nearly always girls – have been reporting a grotesque, feathered bird-man in and around the churchyard of Mawnan old Church, near the village of Mawnan Smith in Cornwall. The sightings have been linked with various strange phenomena and even with a Phoenician cult which sacrificed small children to an owl god. It doesn’t get weirder than this one guys.

A hair is found on the monster hunt. Jon Downes, Monster hunter and Cryptozoologist, leads a search for the fabled ‘big cats’ (Beast of Bodmin moor ) that are thought to roam the local area. Bideford, North Devon. 12 January 2017

Monster Hunter: World is planned for release on PlayStation® 4 and Xbox One on January 26, 2018. A PC release will follow at a later date. For more information on the game, please visit www.monsterhunterworld.com.